NEW DELHI: The Centre is in no hurry to declare the floods that have ravaged large parts of Uttarakhand as a 'national calamity', with information and broadcasting minister Manish Tewari insisting that rescue and relief is, for now, the prime focus and priority of the government. "What has happened is extremely unfortunate. The need of the hour now is not to debate how the disaster should be classified but to ensure that every stranded person is rescued and gets back home safe," Tewari told newspersons here on Friday. 

In fact, the Railways is going the extra mile to take the rescued pilgrims and tourists back home. Tewari said, “The Railways has volunteered to take them home for free.” “All those rescued so far can take train journeys to their hometowns entirely free of cost. Sufficient trains with empty coaches are being sent to the state to bring back the rescued pilgrims/tourists,” he said. 

As anxious relatives and friends of pilgrims and tourists stranded in flood-ravaged Uttarakhand wait to hear from them, the state government is also setting up a special website to bring up to date, members of the public, on the progress of relief operations. "The Uttarakhand government is devising a way to build a live database of missing persons and making it interactive, so that missing cases be centrally reported and then accessed by the disaster relief agencies," Tewari said on Friday. Meanwhile, Union home minister Sushilkumar Shinde will be travelling to Uttarakhand on Saturday to take stock of the situation and review the rescue and relief operations on the ground. The government here also stepped up efforts to restore telecommunications in the flood-ravaged districts. "There are 739 mobile towers there, of which 207 are not working. At a review meeting chaired by cabinet secretary Ajit Seth on Thursday, it was decided to restore these towers to functional status over the next 24 hours," said the I and B minister.